Category: depression

I have had a whirlwind of a last couple of months. Interviews, a new job, getting sued for medical bills I never denied payment for, and a car crash that left my car like so:

The hassle with the insurance companies and finding a new car and needing to pay a difference on the totaled vehicle and paying a citation that followed this horrific and traumatic event in my life was almost enough to make me wish I hadn’t survived. However, the day it happened, I started writing a poem (sort of) and later realized I was just getting frustrated with a system designed to make you give up and decide that life is no longer worth it. If my near death experience taught me anything, it is that there is very little in life that really matters. Everything else is just meaningless fluff.

I am so very grateful to my true friends – the ones who were there for me and stepped up to the plate to help out both me and my family. Being down to one vehicle with a very long commute to work in two opposite directions is zero fun. Thank you guys for being awesome. Thank you for helping me long enough for me to remember how not to be miserable again and to simply be grateful for all my blessings.

Without further ado, here is what I really came to say today:

If you asked me yesterday what I’d be doing today, I would not have said anything along the lines or what actually did happen. This is not how I planned for my Valentine’s day to go.

Today, I almost died.
Today, I almost killed others with no intent.
Today, I realized in a moment of clarity, while spinning uncontrollably under an 18 wheeler that almost crushed me and being shot back across a miralculously empty for a few seconds high-speed four-lane highway to safety in the median, that I didn’t have any regrets while leaving this world.
Today, by all logic and probability, I should be dead.
Today, I feel so empowered to be alive, to be here still, to be a living voice in the drone of many voices.
Today, I am grateful to be able to write these words, to drink a hot chocolate, to enjoy my family and their love, to learn who my true friends are, and take joy from the antics of my cats.
Today, I am pleasantly surprised to know I have found people, who after a week of knowing me, would drive into danger to save me. And that a person I met once cared enough to send me a few words of comfort in my time of need.
Today, I know I’ve changed into someone I can hardly recognize and so much of the anguish I held inside has disappeared with the wreckage of my cursed car.
Today, my spirit is still restless and all is not well with my soul but I know I am not afraid of death or what comes after. Returning to God’s embrace does not bring this sinful soul a trace of terror, only a yearning to be in His presence.
Today, I know what Really matters to me in the chaos and corruption and suffering and negativity that has been ruling my social feed and fueling my passion for justice and equality.
Today, my heart confirmed that Love really is the cliched answer to so many hatreds but it is not a solution easily achieved. I still cannot bring myself to forgive those that have truly wronged my soul.
Today, I know I was saved by the will of God and in His Mercy He saved me; maybe someday I will be worthy of His miracle.
Today, I know that all things taken into account, GOOD still exists in the world, people can be wonderful, and God still cares.
Today, I am reborn.

Hey y’all, I know I said my next post would involve a boot, but I’m postponing that for later. I have something I just have to say here right now, today.

Have you ever Known you are loved, cherished and thought of often only to also feel like you’re never good enough and people simply tolerate you because they are kind? I’ve been feeling that way a lot lately. I’m frankly jealous of the people I see together with their friends and just genuinely close to each other with no walls up between them. I miss feeling that way. I miss exchanging a single glance with someone and having them understand everything that just went through my head.

I miss feeling like I had my own person.

It isn’t that my friends don’t support me or appreciate me. It isn’t that they don’t care about me. It isn’t even that they don’t make time for me. But I simply never feel like I belong or like I’m wanted. This isn’t their fault. I know it’s somehow me being messed up inside causing this view. but somehow I can’t help it.

Something inside feels so broken lately. I think it’s because I feel less than worthy of anyone’s attention. I feel like I am a burden or a bore or both to the ones I love and want to be around. This feeling is slowly crushing all the joy I have built up in my heart this year.

I really hope that all of you out there feel cherished and loved and know you are amazing in so many ways. God bless.

A strong woman, they say
Forged in the fires of pain
Feeling the salt and blood of rivers
Flowing down the cracks in her skin
Through the warmth that keeps
Her living, slowly becoming her veins

A strong woman, they call her
As she picks herself up again and again
You, and you, and you, and you –
You who were supposed to be
Her brother, her lover, her protector, friend
Turned into the very vultures that
Attacked her even as she writhed in pain

A strong woman, they labeled me
This tired, brittle bag of bones
With each day, it becomes harder
Each trial making me more alone
I did all I imagined possible
But it was never enough to ensure
That I would never have to be strong enough
To weather all, steady as stone

A strong woman, I’m told
Is one like me, racing through
Typhoons, tidal waves, earthquakes
Even the deep dark of a black hole
As if nothing is of consequence
Like no matter how many meteorites strike me
I will simply go on, perfectly whole

A strong woman, I may have become
But with every step, every fall
My soul shattered into jagged glass
My feet slippery from bleeding with
Cuts made each time I broke
And break I did, losing another piece of me
Every time I had to forge myself anew

This strong, independent woman
Was wrung through every pain the world
Could imagine, first taking her innocence
Then her dignity, clipping her wings
To cage her when she would have flown
Slowly corrupting even her smile
Until all that remained was a shell

This strong woman became a hollow husk
A puppet on a string manipulated
By you, her protectors in name
But in truth, you were her jailers
The ones forever claiming you knew
What she could and could not do

This woman, before she was strong
Was in apathetic darkness years long
Eventually, she realized she would die
If she remained caged, unable to fly
So she broke free of her shackles
Finally roaring with rage
Daring the world to challenge
Her right to live, never again enslaved

This strong woman, she made
So many choices, both right and wrong
But she learned her own mind
She learned to stand strong
Believing she could shape her own life
Whether or not she ever came to belong

This strong woman slowly changed
From a girl into a woman older than her age
Along the way, she lost many people
She broke her heart, she failed her dreams
Some people abandoned her, some used her
But with every scar, she learned to go on

This strong woman, she survived
The rush of agony each time
Life taught, terrorized, traumatized
Each time, the dark rose to take over
She learned a new depth of light inside
Growing stronger with every passing night

This strong woman, who knew love once
Came to know betrayal
Came to know abandonment
Learned she could always fail
With every instance she chose perseverance
Her desire to Live grew stronger, she prevailed

A strong woman can never be weak
Even as you choke the life blood from her
No tear will fall from her eyes
No sign of pain will show through her mask
She will only scream silently, praying for help
She never gets an answer that
She didn’t have to create for herself

A strong woman should never be lonely
That is the mantra she repeats to herself
Every time she sees someone happy, whole
She wonders who her happiness stole
She became so strong that the weak majority
Became afraid and intimidated
Now she walks alone because
No one of equal strength walks nearby

A strong woman they call me
As if it was so easy to become me
As if I didn’t have to struggle down
Every path I chose for myself
As if every scar didn’t tell another
Festering, heartbreaking story
As if, somehow, this title I have earned
Were just a casual note in a Symphony

This strong woman, every time she starts anew
Digging out a new path, carving a new trail
Becomes a little stronger with each drop of pain
Becomes harder with every scorching flame
The pressure of hardship and expectations
Slowly turning her into a diamond untamed

Depression, for me, is a combination of apathy and self hate. It is a dwelling upon singular instances that become my entire existence. It is an amplification of every negativity I have ever been the perpetrator of or perceived myself as being responsible for. It is the reaching out of the past grabbing me in the present. It is the crushing weight of my perceived failures when, really, they were all simply lessons I had to learn.

Time seems to ebb and flow like waves gently rolling in to a sandy beach on a sunny day. Other days it passes by in a blur, so fast it is gone in a flash. Sometimes, it seems to fold in upon itself as the past reaches out to grab the present, intending to influence the future.

Some people like time is a linear line that goes straight forward from point A to B. They have a set plan for everything they do, not realizing that only works until life throws a curveball and sets you off the predicted trajectory. Some people get stuck on a singular moment in their lives, forgetting to live the moment they are in now. They lose all the opportunities that come to them in their grief, in their shock, in the longing for a reality that no longer exists. Yet others seem to treat time like a joke. Its nuances and expectations hold no interest for them. They live only in the moment, never planning a single thing, never moving forward, never remembering a lesson learned.

Most people experience a little of all these different aspects of time. They plan for the future. They live in the moment from time to time. They grieve over a loss they suffered occasionally. All of those things are normal. It is only when one gets focused on just the one aspect of an incredibly intricate series of events that become a life story that they stop living.

Death becomes an escape from the sheer monotony of one’s apathetic existence. It seems to be the only road left to walk on when the darkness shallows you whole. The demons that live inside rejoice when the inclination to live, to love, to allow that you are worth loving, to grow, to change, to Be ceases to be. They proclaim the only relief to be found is in the arms of death. They assure me that it will be a relief for everyone else in my life too. They will finally be free of suffering me.

I have learned over time that life goes on. Whatever is crushing us in this moment will one day become a bearable memory some day, if only we have the strength to continue. That strength doesn’t come just from oneself. It comes from the friends that are with you through it all. It comes from the family you were lucky enough to either be born to or have built yourself. It comes from faith and hope.

Time waits for no one. It marches on even when the world is ending and you don’t think you will ever breathe the same again. It goes on even when there is not a shred of light in your life. It keeps going when the most horrendous things happen. Change is not a deterrent for time. It is simply the result of times passing. Time passes by stagnation as easily as it passes by entropy.

It doesn’t matter what life you live or who you are. There is one truth that gives me strength and I hope it will give hope to anyone else suffering from heartbreak or depression.